Well, with Merm-8’s 3rd revision done, and no touchies until December, I’m now back on the short story kick. Which is nice for a change. I do have that trunk novel I’m working on, but short stories will give me more resume-building material in the short run. I finished revising Defender based on the critique I got from “On the Premises” and sent it out to a fledgling market that deals with e-books. Sounds like I have what they’re looking for, but their pay rates are based on percentages of gross. Should be interesting to see if that pans out. My new short story is another zombie story (this makes…
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Left 4 Dead: Idiot Swordsmen
Okay, Left 4 Dead 2 has a thing called “mutations”. Each week a different game mode comes out. This week its “Four Swordsmen” — everyone has swords and only swords, and there are only Special Infected (boss zombies). I was really looking forward to this mod, although I didn’t know there was going to be only special infected. I thought I would have an awesome time cutting through swaths of undead like a samurai from Hell. But the Special Infected (and the sheer number of them) add a level of difficulty that’s compounded by the idiot A.I. Valve: If you make a mod, please test it first, because I don’t…
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Left 4 Dead Monsters
In Left 4 Dead, many people have brought forth explanations as to why the special infected mutated the way they do. Here’s my theories, and I think you’ll find them derivative. The Boomer – Most people think he started as a fat guy who grew to obese proportions. I think different. I think it’s more likely (and more horrific) if he was a skinny health nut. Always eating the nutri-grain bars, jogging every day, counting every calorie. Staying away from trans fats, carbohydrates, and gluten. You can see his shirt and pants are too small–they’re stretched. Plus he’s wearing sweatpants. While circumstantial, this could mean he was into healthy living.…
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Updates
The submissions seem to be in a slump lately. No one’s responding, magzaines have response times that are too long. Agents are not responding with rejections, they’re just ignoring me. I know my story is good, intriguing. What do I have to do to my query letter to make it right? How can this letter get such a positive reaction, and mine’s trash? Tipper and Al Gore are getting divorced. Really? After 40 years of marriage you can’t work out the differences you have? And it’s not like any event preceded this. Al Gore didn’t have an affair, and Tipper wasn’t strung out on heroin and JD (although in my…
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Awesome Idea For a Left 4 Dead 2 Mod
I was playing L4D2 last night and came up with this idea. You’ve fought hordes with conveniences of the modern world–pump action shotguns, IV injections, and pipe bombs. But what if you were a hale and hearty band of rogue adventurers, lifted out of the pages of Tolkien and Goodkind. You’re all alone, you’re in a strange time and place, and there are a thousand zombies coming to kill you. It’s “Thou Lefteth 4 Deadeth”. Basically, it makes all the characters more like an RPG party with classes and differing skills. You don’t even need to make new levels or anything — it’s all character-based fun. Let’s take a look…
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Left 4 Dead, 2 Rabbits, 9 Badminton Nets, 2 Plungers, 4 Dinosaur Scales, 12 Claw-Gripper Things, and a Chia Pet
Two weeks ago, I had the weekend to myself. I played some Half-Life 2 mods, like Minerva and Mistake of Pythagoras, but my appetite was whet and couldn’t be sated. I wanted to kill things. Lots of things. Like zombies. Enter Left 4 Dead. Well, enter Left 4 Dead about two years ago – I’m a late adopter. The concept always sounded intriguing to me but A) it had fast “28 Days Later” zombies, which I don’t like and B) wasn’t a game I probably had time for, since it was a collaborative online game. But despite those objections, I just bought it and downloaded it on Steam. (Aside: Steam…
